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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457992">Nine Months Gone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwriteson/pseuds/madwriteson'>madwriteson</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Babylon 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alien Biology, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Morning Sickness, Pregnancy, Self-Hatred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:55:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,629</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwriteson/pseuds/madwriteson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets of Lyta being very pregnant and grumpy about it, and G'Kar trying to figure out how to make things better. Written after a discussion with janetcarter about how grumpy G'Kar would be upon finding out the facts of human pregnancy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lyta Alexander/G'Kar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nine Months Gone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts">janetcarter</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Is something wrong?”</p><p>Lyta sighed and rolled over in bed, putting her back to the alien man she had been sharing her life and bed with these past few months and pressing both of her hands into the ache that permeated the lower part of her stomach.</p><p>G’Kar slid his hand across her bare shoulder. “Lyta. If you are ill, we should head back towards civilization.”</p><p>“What makes you think I’m sick?” Her voice rasped harsh in a throat that still stung from vomiting.</p><p>“Humans don’t usually vomit every morning in a row for a week without being sick, do they?” There was a semblance of humor in his voice, but the concern beneath it caused a little twinge in her chest that she tried to ignore.</p><p>She reached up and set her hand over his. “I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.” Or at least she was pretty sure she was. It had been years since the last time.</p><p>She had still been with the Corps, then.</p><p>There was a small inhalation from G’Kar. “Is that possible?”</p><p>She patted his hand. “Don’t worry. It won’t last.” And she tried, she tried not to sound bitter as she said that, tried not to remember miscarriage after miscarriage, until the Corps had decided she wasn’t quite as good a candidate for their breeding program as they had hoped she would be.</p><p>“Still…” He slid his hand down her arm, to where her other hand was still pressed into her lower abdomen. “Human females carry their children here?”</p><p>Lyta nodded, not trusting her voice, and G’Kar spread his hand over hers.</p><p>“I’m here. For whatever you need,” he said, his breath soft and warm against her neck, a tenderness she didn’t deserve.</p><p>She tried not to hate him for offering it.</p>
<hr/><p>Two months later, and she was still waiting. Waiting for the pain, waiting for the blood, waiting for the life she carried to come to the same violent end as every other one she had conceived.</p><p>She didn’t dare to hope that it would last.</p><p>At least the morning sickness had stopped.</p><p>G’Kar still treated her the same way he always had. She thought she might have fought him, if he tried to treat her any other way. And if every once in a while, he showed a strange tenderness in her presence, offered her the best portions of their meal or a shoulder rub at night instead of their usual range of extremely athletic activities, well, she could pretend that was normal too.</p>
<hr/><p>At five months along, more or less, she finally had to admit that the baby wasn’t going anywhere. She could feel the baby’s mind within her now, an amorphous swirl that was all comfort and curiosity, and a telepathic presence distinct from her own. As to whether that was normal… well, who could she even ask? The Psi Corps kept medical data on human telepaths locked away, and there hadn’t been a Narn telepath in a millennium.</p><p>And a human/Narn hybrid… well, she was pretty sure she was breaking new ground, there.</p><p>“We should go back to Babylon 5. Surely Dr. Hobbs—”</p><p>“—would have no idea what to do with this either,” Lyta snapped, gesturing down at the bulge of her stomach.</p><p>“Then Dr. Franklin—”</p><p>“—is on Earth, which isn’t exactly a safe place for me right now.” Which had never been a safe place for her, not really, though the Corps had always done their best to provide a semblance of safety, if not the actual thing.</p><p>G’Kar was silent, frowning at her. And then he sighed, and shut his eyes, and let the controlled mask he always wore drop, looking very tired and even more worried. “A Narn female would have given birth by now,” he said quietly. “If a pregnancy continues on past this point, the child must usually be removed by surgery. If it is not, both mother and child are likely to perish.”</p><p>She almost laughed. “I’m just over halfway through a normal human pregnancy.”</p><p>His eyes snapped open. “You’re <em>what?</em>” he barked indignantly.</p><p>“Human males don’t have pouches. Or spend much time caring for newborns, from what I’ve heard.”</p><p>G’Kar let out an indignant huff, and Lyta bit the inside of her lips to keep from smiling.</p>
<hr/><p>Lyta stood and paced the flight deck of their ship. Sitting for too long hurt, these days. So did standing for too long. And laying down too long.</p><p>The baby was awake and kicking, testing its control over its limbs. Lyta pressed a hand to her stomach and sent a wave of calm, though not quickly enough to prevent a sudden sharp kick to her bladder that sent her scrambling for the bathroom.</p><p>G’Kar was on his feet waiting for her when she returned to the flight deck. “Come here.”</p><p>“What?” she snapped.</p><p>“You need a back rub.”</p><p>She sighed and crossed the room to him, bracing her hands against the wall at his side. She never quite had the heart to refuse him when he offered, and… well, the man was damn good at giving back rubs.</p><p>“We should find a colony with a doctor, at the very least,” he said as he worked her lower back into putty beneath his hands. An argument they had been having for the past month, and one she wasn’t willing to let him win.</p><p>“The diagnostic equipment says I’m doing just fine.”</p><p>“I’m not a doctor, and neither are you.” He dug his thumbs into a knot in the upper part of her hip. “What happens if you die from this?”</p><p><em>Then I die,</em> she thought, though she couldn’t say the words. “I’m not going to die from this.” And she probably wasn’t. She had no idea what the Vorlons had done to her, but she should have died a dozen times over by now. She wasn’t going to let a little thing like a pregnancy take her out.</p><p>G’Kar pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and did not answer.</p>
<hr/><p>Labor was worse than a miscarriage had ever been.</p><p>At least she wasn’t doing it alone. She had managed to contact someone in the telepath resistance, had been sent towards a far-flung colony world where a small group of telepaths eked out a bare-bones existence. She and G’Kar had offered what supplies they were able to in exchange for the assistance of the closest thing the colony had to an obstetrician, a brisk middle-aged woman who went by Liz, who oversaw all the births in the colony and whose job seemed to mostly consist of telling pregnant women when to push.</p><p>G’Kar had been banned from the delivery room twice, but after he pushed his way back in at Lyta’s pained scream, Liz rolled her eyes and allowed him to stay. Lyta clung to his hand as she pushed and pushed and pushed, until suddenly things were moving, so fast that she didn’t know how to react.</p><p>Lyta rather thought she lost consciousness at some point, though, because her next hazy memory was of a baby being set in her arms, small and unformed and covered in a pale echo of her father’s spots.</p><p>“See if you can nurse her,” Liz said to Lyta, “and you call me if she,” this was accompanied by sharp look at G’Kar and a finger pointed at Lyta, “starts bleeding again.”</p><p>“Of course.” But G’kar was intent on the baby in Lyta’s arms, clearly no longer paying any attention to what Liz had to say. Liz could tell, Lyta thought; the older woman rolled her eyes before leaving the two of them with their new daughter.</p><p>Lyta lifted her shirt and frowned at the baby. Would she latch on herself if Lyta held her in place, or—ah. Definitely self-attaching. All right. She could work with this.</p><p>G’Kar traced a finger across the baby’s plump shoulder, clearly in awe of the fact that he had some part in creating this new life, as small as it had been. That much Lyta could tell even without reading his mind. “Hello, little Ro,” he whispered.</p><p>“And there you go deciding on a name without me.”</p><p>He gave her a hurt look. “It is a pet name. A baby name. It has been a very long time since the Narn were last certain that their children would survive beyond their first year. It is easier…” he sighed, and cupped the back of the baby’s head gently with one hand. “Easier to not get attached. Easier to use names that can be later discarded, when a child reaches the age to choose their path in life.”</p><p>Of course. Of course. Decades under Centauri rule… “Then Ro is fine for now.”</p><p>Ro detached herself from Lyta’s breast and yawned, and G’Kar eyed her with a great deal of avarice. “May I?”</p><p>“Please. Take her.” And then Lyta could ignore the way holding the baby made her feel.</p><p>G’Kar scooped Ro off of Lyta’s chest and cradled her in one arm as he fumbled with the fastenings of the loose shirt he was wearing. And then, a moment later, Ro disappeared inside the shirt and inside G’Kar as well as he tucked her into his pouch. He stroked the bulge of her in his abdomen, and after a bit of wiggling the baby seemed to settle in there, curling up in a tight ball. “That’s better,” G’Kar muttered, one hand still settled possessively over their daughter’s body. “You spent far too long in your mother,” he lectured his abdomen. “Dreadful behavior on your part.”</p><p>For the first time in a very, very long time, Lyta let herself laugh where it could be heard.</p><p>Maybe there was a future here to look forward to.</p>
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